


Fencing With Ghosts

by that_one_kid



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, allura cares a lot, coran and allura are grieving for altea, coran has feelings too, random lance shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 14:41:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16221203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/that_one_kid/pseuds/that_one_kid
Summary: After a long and weary day, a fact about Coran is revealed. Allura goes looking for him, and finds out that he has a secret. After all, everyone grieves.





	Fencing With Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> See end notes for trigger warnings

“How does Coran know all of this stuff, anyway?” Lance asked once, while the Paladins were all slumped in the team debriefing area. “I mean, there’s no way he’s Googling it that fast.”

“Googling?” Allura asked, raising one eyebrow.

“Uh, looking it up online. On the database. Whatever,” Lance amended, throwing one arm over his eyes.

“I have an eidetic memory,” Coran said from behind him, and it spoke measures as to how tired Lance was that he didn’t so much as flinch. “I can recall all information and images that I’ve seen with perfect clarity.”

“Is that an Altean thing, or…” Shiro trailed off, shifting to look back at Allura.

“Oh, quiznak, no. It’s just a him thing,” she muttered from where she had draped herself across a couch. “Thank the ancients. It means I can forget what I saw today.”

“Okay, you know what, it’s not my fault!” Lance protested angrily. “How was I supposed to know that if we got captured they’d strip us of our armor and uniforms?”

“I don’t even understand how you can pilot your lion going commando. Isn’t it distracting?” Hunk chimed in from the back. The team laughed, and Lance blushed beet red. Pidge, zoning out and staring straight ahead, was the only one who caught the flash of pain in Coran’s eyes, a blink-and-you-miss-it snapshot of misery. Pidge blinked and rubbed their eyes. Clearly they needed to get more sleep.

The debriefing continued like normal, but Pidge couldn’t shake the look they’d seen in Coran’s eyes, like they were developing their own freaky eidetic memory. Afterwards, they went up to Allura.

“Can we talk? Privately?” they asked, and Allura nodded. The two of them ducked into Allura’s room, right across the hall.

“Something on your mind, Pidge?” Allura asked, looking concerned.

“Is everything all right with Coran?” Pidge asked, frowning at the ground. “He seemed - for a second, I mean, and then it was gone, he seemed-” they broke off in frustration. “He looked miserable.”

“Coran?” Allura said, her doubt more audible than she’d intended.

“Never mind. I probably imagined it,” Pidge said, and went to leave.

“No,” Allura said, laying a hand on their shoulder. “If you saw it, I believe you. I’ll talk to him.”

Coran wasn’t in the engine room, the hallways, the bridge, or inside the walls. Allura realized after searching for a while that despite the fact that he always appeared when needed and was almost always somewhere in the ship, he must have an actual room somewhere. She was rather disappointed in herself for not having the faintest idea where it was. “I suppose it’s understandable,” she told the space mice, riding on her shoulder. “He spent so much time with me in my room after we awoke to the loss of Altea, and he was always so comforting. He had to have somewhere to go after that, somewhere private.” The mice chittered in response.

“No, I don’t think he lives in the walls,” she replied, and set about finding his room. She wandered around the ship, eventually discovering a room with a light on that didn’t belong to her or the paladins. It was spaced almost equally between the engine room and the bridge, presumably so Coran could get to either in a hurry. She knocked softly, and when there was no response she slid the door open.

Inside, there was a single plain bed and a desk with a lamp shining on a huge pad of paper. An easel was leaned haphazardly in one corner. Most striking, though, was the fact that the walls were entirely papered with drawings, sketches, and paintings. Mostly faces, in profile or straight on. A few full-body sketches. Every person pictured was Altean. Some of them were vividly familiar. She saw King Alfor smiling down from one corner, the quirk of his mouth the same smile he’d worn whenever he’d told Allura a particularly bad joke. Some were only faintly familiar - people she’d seen around the palace. Each face was wearing a distinctive expression, ranging from joy to rage to sorrow. Coran was hunched over the pad on the desk, scribbling away with a pencil.

“Coran?” she said, softly, and he jumped. “Princess!” he cried cheerfully, straightening up and spinning to beam his trademark high-voltage grin at her. “I didn’t hear you come in! What can I do for you?”

“What are all of these?” Allura asked, taking a few steps further into the room and spinning in a slow circle to survey the gazes of the faces lining the walls. They appeared to be hung up several layers thick. They filled her with a strange, heady mixture of loss and relief.

“They’re Alteans,” Coran said, unnecessarily. He continued, softly. “All the ones I ever met.” Allura drew in a sharp breath - not so much a gasp but a physical necessity. She felt like she’d just been punched.

“Your eidetic memory,” she said, louder than she intended. “That’s why you looked upset when it came up.”

“I do what I can for their memory,” Coran said, nodding to himself. “When all the work on the Castle is done, of course, and all of the paladins are happy and seen to.”

"How?” she asked, tipping her head up only to see more faces on the ceiling. Her eyes started to blur with tears. “How do you come in here, every night? How do you deal with seeing them all?” She tipped forwards, unbalanced and unguarded. She felt his arms close firmly around her, easily lifting her off the ground. He carried her out of the door and into the hallway, where he lowered her gently to her feet.

“I see them every day,” he said, his voice cracking. “Whether or not I’m in that room.” Allura threw her arms around him, holding on as tightly as she could. He was shaking, a little. Or she was.

“A whole planet full of people trapped in your head,” Allura said, pulling back from the hug to stare Coran in his violet eyes. “A whole planet of ghosts. How?”

“Never fence with ghosts,” Coran said, his smile back in place somehow. “The Altean with the sword always ends up looking ridiculous.” Allura chuckled weakly at that.

“So, you paint them?”

“I paint them. And I remember them. And once I’ve painted them, they fade away. Not entirely, of course, but they become… less urgent. I scan a copy of each one, and drop them as data at each friendly station we land at. And perhaps if something happens, to me or to the Castle, they’ll live on.”

“Ghost paintings,” Allura said, softly. “Here and gone again... as are we all.”

“Right, that’s enough of that!” Coran chirped, and now even his mustache was somehow radiating cheer. “Time for a nice engine diagnostic to cheer us up. Grab a wrench, would you?”

“That sounds nice.” Allura said, and smiled back. “Let’s do it.”

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings for grief, genocide, Lance going commando


End file.
